Ultimate question: Why anything at all?

bohm2

Descartes: "I think, I exist"? I think one would have trouble trying to question their own existence.

SW VandeCarr

I exist. But I'm not sure about you or Descartes. Besides, the question is "why" anything exists. I exist, but I have no idea why.

apeiron

You only need the existence of one particular thing to motivate the more general question of why should anything exist. And it is a legitimate metaphysical question that is worth taking more seriously.

Some try to answer it in terms of material cause (some event like a quantum fluctuation).

Some employ final cause (existence is necessary to complete some sort of purpose).

The OP was about an argument based on formal cause - the ways to exist far out-number the simple alternative of non-existence.

So it is a question that forces you to question your very understanding of "existence" and "causality". What is the ground beneath these fundamental notions?

SW VandeCarr

Frankly I find these discussions rather useless and annoying. The OP's question as to "why" anything ultimately exists has no answer IMO outside theology and as such should be off limits, even in this forum.

apeiron

That seems an odd reaction to me. Philosophy is in fact more about how to frame questions properly than in delivering the certainty of an answer. You can always hope to do at least that much.

While perhaps theology does start with its answer, then seeks its supporting framework of argumentation (in so far as it needs to justify what people are going to believe from social indoctrination anyway).

But here in this forum, it is pretty clear that you have to demonstrate why the question has no possible answer before you can call for it to be ruled "off limits". Are you suggesting it is a tautology or ill-posed for some other standard reason?

SW VandeCarr

I would challenge that outright. I don't need to show that no possible answer exists. I have only to refer to this thread and other similar threads that have made no progress toward a satisfactory answer or to even suggest how a satisfactory answer could be formulated outside of some first cause argument. When a first cause argument is framed in terms of "why", it's difficult to see how it's not theological.

Nano-Passion

THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS!!!! That was an extremely interesting read to say the least!! I've grappled with this question hard and long and this was a very invigorating read.

"Why is there Something rather than Nothing?
If you don’t get dizzy, you really don’t get it."

I like this quote, its very true!

apeiron

But the OP did not offer a "first cause" argument. It was an argument from formal cause.

And when you say "first cause", it is not clear here whether you in fact mean efficient cause or final cause.

Some arguments posit a first event (an efficient cause) - either a god chosing to act, or something like the first arbitrary swerve of an atom in Greek atomist philosopy.

More sophisticated arguments, like Aristotle's, are based on final cause. Things start out as merely potential and then develop towards the actual. So Aristotle's "unmoved mover" was not a god of the "lighting the blue touch paper" variety but the concept of a final state (of actualised perfection) that draws the potential towards it, "inspiring it to develop".

It is the outcome that causes the move. Or perhaps the better way of putting it, it is the limit on change. This is an ontology in which the problem is not about getting anything started, but finding the reason it eventually stops. A very different way of thinking about "why anything".

ThomasT

This depends somewhat on how one views/defines the evolution of our universe. Apparently, there's only one possible way "that the world might be, down to every detail" at any given instant, during any given interval -- which is the way that the world actually is.

Depending on one's view/definition of the evolution of our universe, some of the future possibilities that might seem apparent wrt certain views can be ruled out, rendered impossible, wrt certain views. In the views where the evolution of the universe is limited in some way, there's a limited number of possible continuations with each possibility having a positive (> 0) finite probability of occuring.

The assumption that certain fundamental dynamical laws (maybe just one fundamental dynamic) are operational seems to suggest that the evolution of the universe will exhibit certain evident salient, and therefore predictable, characteristics. For example, wrt a local deterministic universe where the speed of change is limited by c, the prediction that the spatial configuration of the universe one nanosecond from a time, t, will not be appreciably different from the spatial configuration at t.

Anyway, wrt our universe, the possibilities don't seem to be infinite, but instead seem to be quite limited -- depending, as I mentioned, on the assumptions one starts with, and there don't seem to be an infinite number of reasonable alternatives from which to choose.

The problem is that there aren't, based on observation and certain inferences relating to observation, reasonably, an infinite number of ways for reality to be. The fact of the matter, the reality of any given universal configuration, is the configuration itself -- which necessarily entails that it isn't some other possible configuration.

But we're just considering the two possibilities, something and nothing. If, since we don't know why there's something rather than nothing, we give these two possibilites equal weight (which I think is the usual probabilistic approach), then each has a 1/2 probability.

However, there is something rather than nothing. Which is all that we know, or can know, about the something vs nothing problem, since, by definitions, we can't experience nothingness. So, we can't even say that nothingness is a possiblity.

Thus, the question does, imo, reduce to, "why/how our universe?". Wrt this I think that there are some cosmological models that extrapolate/speculate back to before the point of departure of the mainstream "big bang" cosmologies.

No.

apeiron

A good thinker on the issue is the process philosopher Nicholas Rescher.

See "On explaining existence" - http://cla.calpoly.edu/~rgrazian/doc...gExistence.pdf

Briefly, he outlines why efficient cause-based explanations fail. Then argues for a "constraint of possibility" approach - what he calls the hylarchic principle.

The neat trick he wants to then pull off is to show that because there are grades of possibility - with only the constraint-satisfying kinds being "real" - then the possibility of nothingness can be ruled out (so proving there must always be something as some possibilities will always become the actual due to the causality of proto-laws).

Still more ambitiously, Rescher hopes then to connect to science by suggesting that GR or QM may already be laws of this form - ones that exclude null outcomes as actual possibilities.

ThomasT

@ apeiron,

Thanks for the links and comments. Whatever you write wrt anything has always made me think and provided motivation to learn more.

bohm2

This sorta of argument is a very strong argument against the original position at the start of the thread, I think. If one assumes that mind-independent reality transcends mathematical (necessary) truths/logic (e.g. reality is not mathematical), then these types of arguments are arguably not very convincing. I'm going to read the Rescher piece. Looks interesting.

ThomasT

I'm glad you're going to read the Rescher piece. I was printing it out (I like to read upside down ... resting) when I ran out of black ink.

I will trust your assessment of it.

What I've read of it so far seems to be in line with the my current mode of thinking on this.

bohm2

I don't trust myself because I'm having a lot of difficulty understanding some his arguments. In my mind, of all of Rescher's possible responses to the question "Why is there anything at all?", the one that I found the most compelling (but unfortunately also unappealing, as Rescher notes) is Mystification: the question is legitimate but unanswerable for a linguistic ground chimp like us. Back to Mcginn's argument, again.

Specifically, I had trouble understanding his Nomological Approach for the major reason that he notes himself:

"How is one to account for the protolaws themselves?". It seems like that approach is just passing the buck elsewhere and the problem remains? I kind of was sympathetic to the mathematical/probabilistic arguments quoted at start of this thread because they were simple but in all honestly I think MarcoD's criticism is extremely persuasive to me, especially since I lean towards treating mathematical objects as mental stuff. I'm guessing that someone who is more of a Platonist on mathematics (e.g. Tegmark’s mathematical universe hypothesis, come to mind) may be more persuaded by Rescher's arguments, I think? One author who takes a very Platonic approach in trying to answer this question is Rickles:

The strategy I am advocating is that physics, in becoming more or less completely aligned to mathematics (in terms of content, at least), will be able to penetrate down the ladder of explanation to the very deepest rung of all: existence. We do not have the same kind of problem with the existence of mathematics. Mathematical statements are necessarily true in the sense that if they are true in one world (in the sense of modal logic) then they are true in all worlds. They are not created. They are not located in spacetime. The question of why is there something rather than nothing simply does not make sense if the somethings in question are mathematical.

http://www.fqxi.org/data/essay-conte...les_fqxi_2.pdf

qsa

How about this take. Something implies that there was a chain of causes that resulted in that something and that means there is a reason for it to be true. But, Nothing is by definition has no cause so it is missing what can make it true.

But what was the initial cause is a question for physicists and not philosophers.

apeiron

But wouldn't the absence of causes be part of the definition of true nothingness? Causality would have to be one of the things "not there".

qsa

I would say causality would be only concerned with " it is here".